Secrets

There is a world within our own that we seldom see. Usually it’s because we aren’t looking for it, but typically it’s because we aren’t looking for it the right way. We become hypnotized in routine and paralyzed by the mundane parts of life. So many of us find ourselves lost in nothing while we try to search for some answer to a question we don’t know how to ask, in a place we don’t know exists.

There is a world within our own that we seldom see. Usually it’s because we aren’t looking for it, but typically it’s because we aren’t looking for it the right way. We become hypnotized in routine and paralyzed by the mundane parts of life. So many of us find ourselves lost in nothing while we try to search for some answer to a question we don’t know how to ask, in a place we don’t know exists.

When we were younger, it was easier to find this place. We had fewer things that demanded our time and attention, we could find new worlds around us without any effort. We saw things through our own filter and for how they really were, and at times we would share them with someone else. Our stories became theirs, and our perspectives were one. You were excited to discover something because it was new and it showed you something that you hadn’t seen before. To have someone close to share that with was even more powerful, because suddenly you were the only two people that knew what this was.

As we grew older, the power of this place is weaker than it was. It can only be as strong as we allow it, and we too frequently allow other, more trivial things to occupy our minds, because we have to. That lost world remains tucked away in a place that we might return to, but can’t yet. That other person was pulled away by someone or something and they’re not there to hear about new discoveries. Although we begin to forget that we ever had something to share or someone to share it with, something inevitably comes along to remind us about the places we never knew existed.

To have a secret, you must first discover one. To discover one, you must go where you haven’t been before. There must be a degree of adventure behind any secret worth having and there must be an element of intrigue to any secret worth sharing.

The Legend of Zelda is a series that evokes that sense of adventure and discovery that we once had. It summons that within us that allows us to wander, without any real agenda other than to see where we end up. It asks of us to have the courage to do so without fear that we won’t endure the challenge that may wait ahead. It knows that as we set sail on a sea of trial, that we do so with the wisdom of the adventures we’ve been on before. It strengthens us with the power to realize our greatest self and overcome all that stand against us.

For thirty years, The Legend of Zelda has been one of those somethings that comes along to remind us of the places that we forgot about. It’s a series that is filled with those worlds within our own that we have forgotten how to find. Within every game, there are moments that are waiting for us to live through them and stories that are waiting for us to listen to.

If you’ve played through any game in the series, you’re likely to have memories of those moments that made you feel smart, powerful, or courageous. You’ve felt excited at obtaining a new item or weapon. You’ve felt clever every time you solve a puzzle.

More importantly, you’ve felt fire. There’s a fire inside that is always glowing, but it glows just a little brighter when you play through The Legend of Zelda. It pulls at that part of you that you once had. That part of you that wandered and that part of you that found something. That same part that kept it and then shared it with someone else beneath the slides on the playground.

November is when we will celebrate three decades of The Legend of Zelda. Many releases in the franchise history have occurred in the eleventh month of the year, and there is something about the post-Halloween autumn that feels like Zelda. Whether you’ve played every game and are waiting for the next, or you’ve never adventured to Hyrule, join us this month as we return to fight evil as Link and save the princess Zelda.